blade runner 2049 ryan gosling

Get your butt ready.  Maybe buy two tickets to ‘Blade Runner 2049’ so you can sprawl out across the seats loveseat-style.  And bring some pillows.  Maybe a throw blanket.  And maybe skip the 64 ounce soda.  Or wear a diaper.

Reportedly, Denis Villeneuve’s follow-up to Ridley Scott’s classic clocks in at a whopping 163 minutes.  If you sit through the trailers and credits, that’s easily a solid three hours.  That’s more than 45 minutes longer than the original.  It’s also roughly 45 minutes than Villeneuve’s previous films ‘Sicario’ and ‘Arrival’.

To perhaps put it into perspective, this is roughly 12 minutes more than the bloated ‘Batman V Superman’, which was criticized for being too long.  (Well, among other things…)  On the other hand, it’s a few minutes shorter than ‘Interstellar’ which clocked in at 169 minutes, as did ‘The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey’.  So it’s long, but it could be longer.

It’s been 35 years since the first ‘Blade Runner’ was released so maybe Villeneuve wants to make sure fans get all the bang for their buck.  But more likely, it’s been reported that Scott (who serves as executive producer) wants ‘2049’ to launch a new shared universe, similar to the ‘Alien’ series which Scott is currently steering.  So not only is Villeneuve stepping into an established mythology, while introducing new characters and concepts for his movie, it’s entirely possible that he was tasked with weaving in additional characters and storylines with an eye on spinning them off into additional features in the future.

What’s even more baffling is that even with the film running over two and a half hours long, Villeneuve still had more story to tell and Warner Bros. is releasing some shorts that fill in the gaps between the first movie and ‘2049’.  The first, ‘2036: Nexus Dawn’, was directed by Ridley’s son Luke Scott and focuses on Jared Leto’s Niander Wallace, who appears to be the villain of the sequel.  Luke Scott previously lensed four shorts that tied into ‘Alien: Covenant’.  It’s unknown at this point how many ‘Blade Runner’ shorts will be created.

‘Blade Runner 2049’, directed by Denis Villeneuve, stars Ryan Gosling, Jared Leto, Robin Wright, Dave Bautista, Ana de Armas, Edward James Olmos and Mackenzie Davis with Harrison Ford.  It arrives on October 6, 2017.

Source: Indie Wire